Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jonathan Bailey <jonathan.bailey AT gmx.de>]

---------- Original Message ----------

>How about if you start talking about the subject when you have acquired
>what you feel is necessary instead of making pronouncements that don't
>consider the bulk of the literature?

Ian, this is rude. I was never talking about Deuteronomy. I was talking about 
evidence
for redaction in Genesis. You wanted to talk about Deuteronomy, and I replied 
that I
declined to get into this discussion, and now you accuse me of trying to talk 
about
something that I am not prepared to talk about.

>Can one talk about JEPD without considering all the Pentateuchal books?

One can talk about hints of redaction in Genesis without mentioning 
Deuteronomy.
Peter Kirk asked for evidences that Genesis was not a unified composition 
under a
single author. I did my best.

>While we're on Genesis, riddle me this: was the Melchizedek episode not
>written in the second century? This seems to be indicated by its use of the
>god reference, the "Most High God" (el elyon, ie not simply elyon -- I
>haven't seen a means of dating that, have you?), which is found in texts
>that are clearly datable to the second century (Ben Sira, Daniel, Judith,
>Jubilees, various DSS). The Asaph psalm 78 also uses el elyon, and the
>Asaph psalm 79 seems to deal with Antiochus IV's attack on Jerusalem.

I would say that the Melchisedek episode was written in its current Hebrew 
form in the
15th century BC. I date Daniel to the 6th or 5th century BC. Asaph seems to be
talking about Nebuchadnezzar, if you ask me.

>Doesn't the anachronism regarding Abraham in Philistineland show that the
>text was written well after the arrival of the Philistines who hit the
>coast around 1175 BCE? There is no knowledge of the arrival of the
>Philistines so they arrived before the emergence of the culture which
>produced Genesis.

I am something of a Velikovskian when it comes to the Phillistines. I believe 
Ramses
IIIs temple allegedly depicting battles between Libyans, Egyptians, and 
"Phillistines" in
around 1175 BC is actually the tomb of Nectanebo I and depicts battles between
Egyptians, Greeks, and PERSIANS in the 4th century BC. Such an interpretation
would require an entire reworking of just about evrything there is concerning 
the
Phillistines. I don't buy that Phillistines were 12th century sea peoples one 
bit. They
were probably tied to Mycenian events.

>What about the table in Genesis 10? If there was a son of Cush called
>Sabteca, doesn't this imply some time long after the period of the Kushite
>dynasty in Egypt, for isn't a group indicated by Sabteca just a dim record
>of the Kushite king Shabtaka?

Haven't looked into it. I will.

>And talking about doublets (there is at least one triplet), the best one
>can do with them is to argue for plurality of hands, not duplicity (a
>"twoness", to use an Anglosaxonism) of sources. Limiting the number of
>sources to two or three or four needs to be argued, not assumed.

I put the number of sources for Genesis at 9, plus one redactuer. These nine 
may
have used other sources, but who is to know?




Jonathan Bailey
Hochschule für Jüdische Studien
Heidelberg